


Unexpected Intimacy

by threewalls



Category: Yami No Matsuei
Genre: Bath Houses, Bath Sex, Community: 30_lemons, Fingerfucking, First Time, M/M, Seduction, Shadows - Freeform, kamakura arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-02-23
Updated: 2006-02-23
Packaged: 2017-10-17 02:36:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/172016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threewalls/pseuds/threewalls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which some things work better without preparation and others do not. (Set during Kamakura arc.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unexpected Intimacy

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers: SIGNIFICANT SPOILERS for vols. 8-11 of Yami no Matsuei, plus the episodes in Hana To Yume not collected into volumes yet. If you have not read these, you may be surprised by Watari's characterisation here. A fan translation of the Hana To Yume sections is available at Theria.Net.
> 
> Thanks: weirdquark's Yami Timeline, jtriskell for very speedy and yet thorough beta and lynndyre for arguing me down from the insanity this was in its initial drafts.

Tatsumi is already in the water when Watari enters the bath house, and more importantly, he's alone. No maids or other servants, no assassins, no insane lake monster-women, their sisters or their husbands... just the subtle noises of the night, wind through branches, water lapping against the smooth stone of the bath. In the antechamber, Watari finds one yukata neatly folded in a basket and when he has undressed, he leaves his own yukata folded on top.

Tatsumi chose a seat with his back to the entrance. The floor extends on all sides of the bath, so Watari walks carefully around the edge of the room to enter on the opposite side. He catches himself unconsciously stepping over and around the flickering, lantern-cast shadows, but doesn't stop doing so. No sense announcing himself before he's ready.

Watari has seen a lot more of Tatsumi in past five months and especially these past few days, but not like this. Tatsumi sits properly, back straight against the wall of the bath and his knees only slightly parted. The colour of his skin has deepened to a tawny caramel between the heat of the water and the lanterns' light; he looks edible.

Tatsumi shifts in his seat and for a moment his cock drifts in the water before settling back against his thigh. Watari makes a mental calculation and grins-- he's bathed with Tatsumi before, but never with the opportunity to look all he wants. Tatsumi's eyes are closed behind his glasses. He has to have been sitting here a while, because his glasses aren't fogged. How a cheapskate like Tatsumi ended up with such flattering frames, Watari will never know. A fluke perhaps-- Watari prefers his lovers in glasses. He's not sure why, but he knows it's not a common interest. Watari is currently wearing contact lenses. This is too important to leave to chance.

He glances across the room to the doorway. There's only a curtain across it, but he made certain to speak with several of the housemaids during his search for his 'assistant'. He is almost certain they will not be disturbed, or even watched, though the latter wouldn't hurt his plans at all.

 _No, Sensei's assistant is not free to dally with the other help._

Watari sits down at the edge of the bath, gingerly testing the water with his left foot. He should have rinsed himself, but that Tatsumi certainly would have heard. The water is cooler than he expects, but it's late. It makes sense that none of the staff would be maintaining the fire. Watari slips fully into the water, sinking from the bench to the floor, and then bending his knees to dip his body to his shoulders.

Watari's plans all start the same way: what does he want, followed by what he will need to acquire to achieve it and who might try to stop him. He has always known he'd need backup to get anywhere against EnMa. He hadn't expected to find it in Tatsumi, but as he'd written up his report for the incident at the ShionDai laboratory, he'd realised that an ability that could stand up to the strongest of Tsuzuki's shikigami, however temporarily, would be an extremely useful asset-- if only he could acquire Tatsumi's cooperation.

Watari's sub-plan for that had been simple, but effective. For the longest time, Watari had seen Tatsumi as a beautiful, but entirely asexual man. However, watching him with Tsuzuki in Kyoto had put paid to that: too many incidental touches, too many tortured glances, too many bad memories. Watari has heard the gossip, not the whole story, but he knows that Tsuzuki is with Hisoka now, and that had been apparent long before ShionDai.

Suddenly wearing dark suits would have been suspicious, so he'd gradually dropped layers from his wardrobe instead. Watari had started sitting next to Tatsumi in meetings and finding excuses to take his breaks in Konoe's office. After several months, Watari had stopped offering excuses beyond setting fresh mugs of coffee on Tatsumi's desk blotter and Tatsumi hadn't seemed to find this strange. It had been almost regular enough to be a ritual, and therefore it had been an encouraging sign. They can't do it here, and Watari has found he misses listening to Tatsumi's surprisingly wicked sense of humour.

Kamakura might feel like the land technology forgot, but Watari can still get a wireless connection here. Away from official prying eyes and with Tatsumi reasonably amenable to his suggestions, he had finally begun to move on The Plan. While Tatsumi explored the Kurosaki estate and followed leads for the case, Watari had set up a holographic simulation of his lab in their room. He'd convinced Tatsumi to help him hack into the Mother computer system, ostensibly to search for information to aid their investigation. They'd succeeded, partially-- of course, he'd concealed that as carefully as their true target: his missing memories from his years with the Five Generals Project. The memories are personal, but he's sure Tatsumi would prefer plausible deniability, anyway.

That had been a week ago. Every time he tries to re-integrate his old memories, he runs into yet another incomplete key download and an incapacitating headache, the biological equivalent of the blue screen of death.

 _He should have known it wouldn't all be that easy._

The water feels good compared to the weather, like a softer, cleaner heat enfolding him. Logically speaking, Watari knows that at least three layers ending with leather against his skin is not dressing for the weather, not when Tatsumi is down to short-sleeved shirts and light summer kimono. He'd been doing better before their little cyber-foray, but now is very different. If Tatsumi asks, Watari will answer that a doctor has to look the part, but it's an older habit. One that will probably give him another headache if he tries to remember why he started it.

 _Not that Tatsumi has been noticing anything Watari's been wearing lately, leather or otherwise._

Watari straightens, his loose, wet hair thick and warm over his back even as the slight evening breeze cools his arms and chest. Slowly, he crosses the short distance to Tatsumi, watching the other man carefully, but Tatsumi’s eyes remain closed. Tatsumi’s expression is not relaxed, even though it is fairly blank. There are lines of tension on his forehead and above the bridge of his nose that he almost wouldn't be Tatsumi without. Except that Watari suspects more recent events than the usual are responsible.

Watari has considered their host a moderate threat to his plans for five days, since Tatsumi drank poisoned wine meant for Nagare. As he'd waited blind in the shadows for Tatsumi to remember to release him, Watari had considered when it would be most advantageous to let Tatsumi know that Nagare already didn't have long. He had known after his first real examination of the man, but Watari had been able to sit on that particular revelation-- until yesterday’s suicide attempt, when it had ceased to matter.

 _Another cutter; who'd have guessed?_

Suicide raises Nagare from a medium threat to a critical one. Of all the elements of Tsuzuki's behaviour, it is the one Watari would never emulate and the hardest influence to predict. Since Nagare's 'accident', Tatsumi has barely left his side to eat or to sleep, never mind their investigative brief focused on Nagare's wife or Tatsumi's professed indignation at being sent from Meifu as a common field agent.

Perhaps Watari has rushed formulating his response plan, but hacking Mother was step one in a plan that cannot now be slowed or put on hold. He needs Tatsumi, now.

Watari takes a deep breath and places his hand on Tatsumi's shoulder. He can do this.

"It's so hot out tonight, ne, Tatsumi?" He slides through the last few inches of water between them as he finishes speaking, turning to perch sideways on Tatsumi's knees.

Tatsumi’s eyes shoot open and he grabs Watari’s shoulders, his hands carrying the same delicious heat as the water. “I don’t know who...” Tatsumi trails off, just looking at Watari, as though he had perhaps fallen from Mars. And then he yawns, blinking cutely even in the low light.

Watari begins to suspect getting this far has had more to do with Tatsumi's fatigue than with Watari's skill at subterfuge.

"Watari-san, please tell me what you think you are doing." Tatsumi's expression suggests that there are very few right answers.

"I was lonely in our room, lying awake, wondering when you were coming back."

It had sounded like something Tsuzuki might say in Watari's head, but it comes out wrong, trite.

"Oh, were you?" Tatsumi retorts, raising an eyebrow. He adds, "you're going to fall sitting like that," and lifts the tips of his fingers to prove his statement.

Watari rearranges himself quickly, shifting to sit astride Tatsumi, who looks even less impressed and perhaps as though he might be considering pushing Watari off his lap. It's not working.

 _Right. Plan B. Improvisation. He'll just... kiss Tatsumi._

Watari's neck bends at an awkward angle and his eyes are closed; he's still shaking a little with adrenaline, but he thinks he's covering it well. Watari is not a nymphomaniac, it's been far too long for that, but sex-desperate is a easier card for him to play than damsel in distress. Tatsumi keeps his lips closed, but Watari knows plenty of other places to kiss, or rather 'bite': Tatsumi's neck, his high cheekbones, the curve of an ear...

When Tatsumi tries to speak, Watari takes the opening to lick into Tatsumi's mouth. He expects Tatsumi to start fighting him, but Tatsumi only trembles slightly. The hands on Watari's shoulders suddenly slide down his back, pulling his hips in close enough that their cocks brush. Tatsumi feels as hard as he is. They both break the kiss to groan.

Watari has fallen forward against Tatsumi, delighting in the warm, wet skin against his skin and hard muscle under his hands, under his legs. Now they're getting somewhere.

"We should get out," Watari says, which sounds too demanding, so he continues, wriggling forward against Tatsumi to seem less artful. "I don't want to stop, but without anything that works in water..."

One of Tatsumi's hands stretches over his tailbone and then further down. "There are certain alternatives... if you don't mind being patient," he says. Watari feels fingertips on very tender skin, and then something that can't be fingers moving inside him because fingers would be blunt and what he can feel is soft but unyielding. Fingers would have been wider to start with and wouldn't gently expand.

"They're warm," Watari says, without being sure why he is whispering.

"Shadows take their temperature from the surface that casts them. You're--" Tatsumi pauses, looking serious. "Watari-san, is this --?"

Watari nods, quickly. "I like a man of many talents."

The tendrils of shadow-- Watari's shadows under Tatsumi's control, amazing-- redouble their efforts, not just pressing outwards, but now slithering with a gentle motion in and out of his body, taking care to open him to the soothing warmth of the water. Watari shifts restlessly, biting his lip against a moan of pleasure. Tatsumi raises an eyebrow and Watari shakes his head, smiling, and presses back more firmly against the tips of Tatsumi's fingers, now circling tantalisingly, but never entering.

Tatsumi's other hand takes Watari's cock in a surprisingly sure grip, stroking it as slowly and as patiently as the shadow tendrils are moving inside Watari. Exactly the same rhythm, Watari realises to his chagrin, glancing down. His hips have joined in with their own complimentary rhythm without his knowledge.

"May I kiss you?" Tatsumi asks.

Watari blinks, startled, half certain that he'd misheard. Considering where Tatsumi's hands are, where Watari's tongue has been, does he really need to ask? Tatsumi's expression is no more open than it has been and it's also maddeningly patient. Watari can't quite put his finger on why he doesn't feel patronised. If this is some game--

Tatsumi isn't the enemy, Watari reminds himself, and then leans down so that Tatsumi can reach him.

Tatsumi's kisses are soft, barely felt, and Watari presses down hungrily, demanding more. The tip of his tongue slides over Tatsumi's upper lip, teasing for entry, but Tatsumi pulls away. His mouth travels across Watari's jaw to his ear.

"Relax," Tatsumi murmurs. "There's no rush, is there?"

Of course not. Watari's not desperate, not yet, and especially if it's not yet an urgency that Tatsumi shares. He firms his grip on Tatsumi's shoulders, closes his eyes and tries to relax into Tatsumi's kisses. They're still butterfly-soft with the faintest teasing suction, just strong enough not to tickle. Across his collarbone and left shoulder, he feels them by the after-chills Tatsumi's breath creates on his dampened skin. Everything else is part of the same soothing warmth-- Tatsumi's hands, the shadows, the water-- it should be easy to relax into it.

Follow the rhythm, he tells himself, don't fight it, even as he digs his fingers into Tatsumi's well-muscled shoulders for better leverage. Forward into Tatsumi's hand and backwards onto Tatsumi's fingertips, circling blunt points of pressure directing the darkness inside. The shadows have moved beyond simply filling him, now concentrated and moving--

Suddenly Watari yelps, arching reflexively forward and then groaning as the shadows roll across that same sensitive place, over and over again.

"There?" Tatsumi asks, needlessly.

Watari can only stammer his agreement. "I'm ready-- you can--" Watari's breath comes in pants. He feels as young as he looks instead of as old as he is. He knows he won't last like this.

With a shaking hand, Watari manages to tilt Tatsumi's face up, but the unexpected heat he finds in Tatsumi's eyes is no help at all. How can he not know what this, his hands, he is doing to Watari? He's close, so close, with nothing of Tatsumi's inside him and it's so hard to remember why that's important. "I can't-- Tatsumi, I'll--"

"Please," Tatsumi groans earnestly and Watari's self-control snaps, and he comes, shuddering in Tatsumi's suddenly tight arms.

Tatsumi's arms don't loosen, thankfully, as Watari leans slumped against him. He can feel the water lapping against his skin, even cooler now. The plan is hazy in his mind, but he's pretty sure Tatsumi was supposed to end up inside him and that hasn't happened yet.

Watari lets himself slump further, one of his hands slipping down between their bodies. There's not a lot of room down there, two cocks, and now two hands. Tatsumi would have been touching himself, however accidentally, with every stroke of Watari's cock. But, Tatsumi's still hard, Watari finds.

"Watari--" Tatsumi gasps, catching Watari's fingers and tries to lead his hand away. "I can wait, Watari-san."

Watari raises himself up over Tatsumi, bracing with his free hand on the lip of the bath. "Why? Your shadows seem slick."

Tatsumi just looks at him without speaking, gorgeous blue eyes wide, but Watari can't believe he doesn't understand what Watari's demanding. Watari takes their joined hands and moves them behind his back, towards the shadows, which seem to reach out feather-soft and curious. Watari leaves Tatsumi's hand on his arse and grins when it stays there.

"You should listen to your shadows, Tatsumi. They'll tell you how relaxed I feel."

"Shadows can't talk," Tatsumi says, but Watari can feel them shifting inside him again. They must be telling him something, sensory data, relative pressure... something that makes Tatsumi shift promisingly underneath him.

"I want you, Tatsumi. Don't you want me, too?"

This close, Watari notices that Tatsumi's eyes are actually very expressive, currents shifting between reasoning and indecision and back again. Watari grins at him, encouragingly, as he waits. Finally, Tatsumi nods, looking down. Watari feels Tatsumi's hands on his hips pulling him close while the shadows flare outward to hold him spread.

For all his bravado, it still surprises Watari when Tatsumi slides in, all in one go. It's the smoothest penetration he's ever experienced, and even as they sit there-- of course, Tatsumi's the sort of guy to give him time to adjust-- he can still feel the shadows within him, massaging away any residual cramps. Tatsumi's hands sit in the small of Watari's back, rubbing small circles there, though they shift quickly to a stronger grip once Watari starts to move.

Much, much stronger.

Tatsumi's eyes shutter, and then abruptly open, blinking erratically before resolving back to an increasingly grim focus. He's also barely breathing, gasping for air. Watari doesn't know whether to be smug or concerned. He's barely moving. Their position doesn't allow for much.

"Are you okay?" Watari asks, one hand stroking a path from Tatsumi's ear to his shoulder, soothing repetition.

"Yes-- Control--"

"It's hard to control?"

Watari can feel the shadows within him ebb and flow, and increasingly ebb, the faintest hint of roughness creeping in. However, he's relaxed and ridiculously well stretched by now. He's not worried, and besides, he really, really wants to see Tatsumi let go.

"I never--"

For several years, Watari has told himself that flesh is no better than silicon and that a man with his imagination shouldn't need a lover, but perhaps that isn't always the point. He is not hard, not physically aroused, as he shifts on Tatsumi's cock, but that doesn't matter. Watari's imagination had never given much thought to what contorted expressions marked Tatsumi's path to orgasm, but now he can't look away; watching someone else becoming undone through him is a pleasure Watari had forgotten.

"Not with shadows?"

"With both!" Tatsumi blurts out.

Tatsumi's hands scramble lower, trying to stop Watari moving, which he does. It's too awkward a position to kiss in, but Watari strokes the backs of his fingers across Tatsumi's lips. "Relax, Tatsumi. I want you to. I want to feel it."

Tatsumi casts him one last, hurried, warning glance before his eyes shut and he surrenders, choking, his expression one of beautiful agony. He arches, thrusting up into Watari, who bites back a curse at the sharp, sudden roughness that comes in the instant between the absence of shadow and Tatsumi flooding him.

 _That was... unexpected._

Watari waits for several moments without moving. Below him, Tatsumi's head has lolled back against the stone, eyes still closed, breath still fast but evening out. He looks more relaxed now than he did asleep, and Watari is suddenly reminded that five years isn't that much older at all. Watari reaches out to brush aside sweat-clumped fringe that has fallen in front of Tatsumi's glasses, but his hand stops poised uncomfortably in the air.

His plan worked, and no matter how good Tatsumi's arms feel around him, they really should get out of the water.

"That so didn't hurt enough to not be worth trying." Watari is glad he doesn't have to lie.

"Really?" Tatsumi doesn't open his eyes, but his mouth curls to something of a grin.

"Oh, yeah."

Surprisingly, Tatsumi moves as soon as Watari does, solicitous from his gentle hands guiding Watari out of the bath to the cold water he pours over Watari's shoulders before rinsing himself.

Tatsumi frets about the state of the bathwater as they towel off. Watari suggests they take a moment to compare the relative liquid volume of the body of water they just got out of and their 'emissions', as Tatsumi put it. Even without measuring, Watari's confident of estimating that one is very large and one very small. Considering also that, at the bare minimum, there will be four hours between now and when the maids come to change the water, first thing in the morning--

By this point, Tatsumi is laughing.

Watari finds himself smiling, genuinely, as he unfolds his yukata to get dressed. Not bad for the first time he could remember having sex since he died. He hadn't expected Tatsumi to be this willing, but neither had he expected Tatsumi to be this good. His plan had worked, and it had worked despite everything. He's never pretending again.

"Watari-san?"

Tatsumi's finished dressing, his navy blue yukata neatly folded around himself and its black sash firmly knotted in place. He is also standing right beside Watari, far closer than he needs to be, even in this small antechamber.

"I think I'd embarrass us both if I asked now what had brought this on. I'm... glad you trust me enough to approach me with..." Tatsumi pauses ruefully, raising his hand to gently caress the side of Watari's face. "So, I'll trust that if there is anything I should be aware of, you'll tell me."

The gesture had always looked patronising when Tatsumi did it to Tsuzuki, but from this angle, all Watari can see is that Tatsumi really cares and that he doesn't mind if Watari knows it. In fact, he looks almost happy for Watari to know it.

Quickly, Watari reaches up and pushes Tatsumi's glasses a little further up his nose. And then he kisses him once, light enough not to jar Tatsumi's hand. Tatsumi smiles and strokes the back of Watari's ear with his thumb.

"It's been a rough couple of days," Watari offers, shrugging to keep his words light.

"It has. For everyone."

Watari feels his smile freeze over. Tatsumi's hand is still on his cheek, but he's looking out the door instead of at Watari. Watari has Tatsumi now-- he's sure of it-- but Nagare is still dying. When the time comes, Tatsumi's still going to be hurt and badly. Watari will be there, and he will pick up what pieces there may be, but he'd been hoping to avoid that for both Tatsumi's sake and his own.

But, Nagare's not dead yet.

"This is why they make us work in pairs, isn't it?" Watari makes himself chuckle.

Thankfully, Tatsumi joins in. "We do seem to work... surprisingly well together," he says, his gaze flitting back towards the bath before returning to meet Watari's. That smile and those eyes settle the fluttery feeling in Watari's stomach. Perhaps they shouldn't, but they do. A man of many talents, just like he had said, although he hadn't realised then how true it is.

As they turn to leave, Tatsumi reaches out and with one hand gesture smothers the light from the lanterns with shadow. Watari shivers, and steps out into the night.

New variables doesn't mean he can't make this work.


End file.
